In the deployment of wireless mobile stations, e.g., of the IEEE 802.11 type, seamless mobility depends on solving a host of wireless access issues for the end user. Equipment and devices must be configured to negotiate many different frequencies, protocols, technologies, network types, regulatory environments and more, simultaneously not making the underlying complexity transparent to the end user, so as to ensure a truly seamless experience for the user.
A description of the manner in which connection managers have been used in prior art is believed to be conducive to an understanding of how the present invention differs. A connection manager in known art simplifies connectivity by abstracting all of the connection information from applications. The primary purpose of the connection manager in prior art is to centralize and automate the establishment and management of various kinds of network connections. Thus, an application only requires information about which network to access rather than all of the connection settings. With connection managers as known earlier, an application is configured to specify a connection name and network name, and the connection manager performs all of the tasks associated with establishing the connection.
As known, it is possible to configure connection manager for a Windows Mobile-based device using XML. It is also possible to configure connection manager using OMA DM-based connectivity objects.
Another connection manager of a known form manages network connections for CellCore-enabled devices, regardless of the service provider used for establishing the connection. Such connection manager provides a fast and transparent way of making connection choices for an application. Users do not have to know which connection path is chosen, yet they can be assured that the most optimal path is used all the time.
Other known forms of connection managers handle many different types of connections, including connections using Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), Remote Access Service (RAS), and Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP). The manager can also configure proxy server settings to allow network resources through a firewall or Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) gateway. As known, some dual-mode cellular phones will support seamless from WiFi to cellular networks when WiFi is unavailable to a caller. That is one of the biggest challenges facing VoWiFi-roaming access. A WiFi access point offers a communication range of up to 90 meters (commonly called a hotspot), and continuous conversations would mean that the caller must stay within an area of overlapping hotspots, or as already suggested, have a VoWiFi dual-mode phone that would switch to a regular cellular phone transmission when the caller moves out of a hot spot range.
In existing 802.11 STA implementations, functions performed by known types of connection manager, which comprise part of lower management layers but beyond the 802.11 standard-scope, are very limited because the wireless functionality can be handled as a slave by higher layers (e.g. application layer) and hence triggered by higher layers when needed, to be dormant or idle otherwise.
With new kind of applications coming over WLAN, such as VoIP or PUSH services, a modified type of autonomic station connection manager is required.